1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to facsimile transmissions and, more particularly, to facsimile transmissions to electronic mail systems.
2. Related Art
Two popular forms of communication are electronic mail (e-mail) and facsimile transmission.
In an e-mail system, communication is provided between two or more computer terminals. Each computer terminal includes software for sending and receiving e-mail which typically includes the ability to reply to and/or forward received e-mail messages. These terminals may be coupled through a public telephone network employing modems, through a LAN or WAN network, or some combination of the above. E-mail permits transmission of text. E-mail also permits attachments such as text or graphic files to be included or attached to an e-mail message.
Typically, an e-mail system is controlled by a central system. The central system may be a PC or mainframe or some other computing system. This central system serves to receive e-mail messages, and store them. When a user wishes to receive e-mail messages, the user logs onto the central system and retrieves any stored messages. Thus, a user is able to retrieve received e-mail messages from any site where the user has access to a computer terminal which can connect to the central computing system. An e-mail sender, therefore, does not have to know where the receiver is or will be when the receiver wishes to receive messages. Rather, a sender always sends e-mail messages to a receiver's address, and the receiver can retrieve that message from any desired PC.
In facsimile transmission, a text and/or graphic document is transmitted from a first facsimile machine to a second facsimile machine, typically over a telephone network such as a public telephone network. Typically, the first facsimile machine converts a document into a facsimile transmission format and transmits the document over the telephone system to the second facsimile or receiving facsimile machine. Upon receipt, the second facsimile machine immediately prints out a hard copy of the received document.
Alternatively, a PC may be employed for the sending and/or the receiving facsimile machine. Where a PC is employed, the PC must be provided with a facsimile compatible modem and translation software for converting a document from and to a facsimile transmission format.
Whether a conventional facsimile machine or a PC is employed, a facsimile receiver must provide the facsimile sender with a telephone number to send the facsimile to. The facsimile sender, thus, must know precisely where the receiver will be located in order to receive a transmission. This is especially inconvenient for business travelers who, in order to receive facsimile transmissions, must supply facsimile numbers at a work location and possibly at a hotel. Where a hotel facsimile machine is used, for example, the receiver must provide the sender with the facsimile telephone number of the hotel. The receiver must also, typically, pay a charge for use of the hotel facsimile machine and relinquish confidentiality when using the hotel's public facsimile machine.
Although e-mail systems have many advantages over facsimile transmission systems, there are still, nevertheless, instances where facsimile transmission is desired over e-mail transmission. This includes cases where a receiver desires a duplicate copy of an original document, such as a contract or other document having a signature. Ideally, therefore, an electronic transmission system would combine the capabilities of an e-mail system and facsimile transmission systems, so that facsimile transmissions are attached to or incorporated into an e-mail transmission. Preferably, facsimile files attached to or incorporated into e-mail messages are converted in route to the receiver to a file format preferred by the receiver. In that way, a receiver would not need to add any additional software to the receiver's PC for receiving facsimile transmissions.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,837,798, issued to Cohen el al., is directed to a unified messaging system for providing a single electronic mailbox for different types of messages. A central mailbox is provided for receiving and storing e-mail, voice mail and facsimile transmissions. Means are provided for alerting a mailbox owner whenever text, voice or facsimile data has been received by the unified mailbox. The mailbox owner can then retrieve the message through several means. For instance, an e-mail user can create a meeting notice and send it to several people. Subscribers may or may not be e-mail users. Instead, a subscriber may receive the meeting notice from the United States Postal Service via an electronic paper mail gateway, through text-to-speech conversion or by calling the message center agent. Thus, message senders are able to create a message without knowing the sender's retrieval system or retrieval device. Cohen et al, however, does not teach conversion of facsimile files to various application formats. Nor does Cohen et al. teach attaching facsimile transmissions to e-mail messages or sending a facsimile transmission to an e-mail address.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,996,707, issued to O'Malley et al., is directed to a text-to-speech converter for a facsimile graphic image. The system includes a computer system for receiving and storing graphic images from remote facsimile machines. This system also includes OCR software for converting graphic images of textual material into an ASCII coded file. A text-to-speech converter is also provided for converting the ASCII coded file into speech. O'Malley et al., however, does not teach to send the ASCII converted file to an e-mail address nor does it teach to convert non-textual facsimile files into various application formats.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,941,170, issued to Herbst, is directed to a facsimile transmission system for transmitting documents over telephone lines using an e-mail system. Briefly, one or more facsimile machines are connected to an e-mail system through a facsimile controller. An e-mail system may include multiple individual computers. For each facsimile machine or each group of facsimile machines, a separate facsimile controller is provided. The facsimile controller is used for identifying incoming facsimile transmissions. Upon receipt of an incoming facsimile transmission, the facsimile controller decodes information from the facsimile transmission for storage in the e-mail system. Once the facsimile transmission is in the e-mail system, it may be transferred among the various computers in the e-mail system. The facsimile transmission stored in the e-mail system can be printed out on any conventional facsimile machine provided that the facsimile machine is coupled to the e-mail system through a facsimile controller. Herbst does not, however, teach to convert an incoming facsimile transmission into a format for display on a computer monitor within the e-mail system. Instead, the e-mail system is simply used as a means for storing and retransmitting a facsimile transmission from one conventional facsimile machine to another conventional facsimile machine.
E-mail systems and facsimile systems, thus, are still effectively segregated. A customer uses an e-mail account, e-mail address, and PC/modem to receive e-mail messages. They also must use a facsimile telephone number and a facsimile machine to receive facsimile messages. Alternatively, a customer may use a PC equipped with a facsimile modem and facsimile software to receive facsimile transmissions, thus eliminating the need for a facsimile machine. But they must still have access to a terminating telephone number (or calling station identifier) to receive the facsimile, must still have a facsimile modem and specialized facsimile software, and must still utilize two different network access methods to receive both an e-mail message and a facsimile message.
Additionally, a facsimile receiver must provide the facsimile sender with a telephone number to send the facsimile to. This means multiple telephone numbers must be used for multiple locations. If the receiver is at a hotel, for example, they must provide the sender with the facsimile telephone number of that hotel. They must also pay a charge for use of the hotel facsimile machine (if used), and give up confidentiality for using a public facsimile machine.
What is needed, therefore, is a method and system for delivering a facsimile transmission to an e-mail system pre-converted into an application format desired by a receiver for display on the receiver's computer. In this way, an e-mail subscriber could receive facsimile transmissions of facsimile and/or graphic data for display on the user's terminal and for retransmitting to other e-mail subscribers or to conventional facsimile machines.